The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1887-03-09
CONCLUSION.

mind with books, and then pouring out
that mind upon the world, without its
having power to think for itself. Another
kind Of education proceeds upon differ
ent plan. | tried to illustrate that in
my lecture on Natural Methods of
| Instruction" Education that educates
every faculty, not so much to stuff the
mind with books, as to direct the spiritual
development, the power of independent
natures 10 teach a person to turn his
mind in every direction to meet the ex-
| igencies of life; to turn his mind in
every good way to get at every good
| thing. We want 70 begin education
that trains the faculties not only to
calculate about an object, but form the
| connection of the brains with the hands.
| Put American brains into American
hands. If you start with the child in
school, you can bring out its working
power, put its mind into such shape as
will bring out its full development.
Now you see why the people demand
this kind of education, why we should
have little different kind of schools
from the past. 1t is not because educa-
tion in the past was failure, but living
in a new-fashioned age our land to-day
is as different from the America of fifty
years ago, as one land can be from
another. We are living in the dispensa-
ton of miracles. We can realize indeed
the supernatural power the ancients
gave to the gods. So it behooves us to
train the American to use his brain in
his work, to collect his working power.
Just as we do this our country will rise,
and this country's resources will be
realized, and ecan work with redoubled
vigor for like success in the future.
/ ana perfectly well aware that my
views are not shared by all people. |
remember meeting an old gentleman, a
Missourian. He had been a graduate
from West Point and a general, and
should have had broader views. He
! said, "What we want in this country is
a contented peasantry, ignorant as they
are in Europe" While we were sitting
there talking, we saw fifty men sweep
| ing the street in their usual slow way.
"Now," said he, eff you take those men
and educate them, the graduates from
your schools will not sweep the street
| like their fathers. And who will do it2''
| said: "There are fifty men; if you take
| those men and educate them up to in
| telligent work, the result will be, one of
| those men will invent machine to sweep
the street fifty times quicker than now ;
then you would have forty nine men to
do something else; one would farm,
another keep store, and others follow
various trades. Sir, instead of having
| fifty men packed in tenement house
population in the city, we would have
| fifty intelligent men, women and chill
dren working as intelligent people in
different parts of the country. Just in
proportion as you leave the great mass
of people, the laboring power, in igno'
rance, civilization must weaken.
This educating man is not all, of
course. We want good society and
churches to aid us. The children will
help to bring a change. Educate the
children.
OF course the foreign people will be
| hard to work up, but it is time for the
| Americans to take this in hand. They
| must be trained to skillful labor, and be
given sufficient intelligence to handle
the great labor-saving machinery. And
then in the future the result will be
great.
Then let me illustrate what ] mean,
showing how to institute industrial edu-
cation-show you how you can use the
| training learned in this institution,
when you go out to teach school-go
among people living in the open coun
try, people less cultivated than yourself
how you may encourage this educa
ton. First, as a basis, we must have
what we call elementary common school
education. You cannot polish brick,
but YOU can polish marble. You cannot
take negro in the bottom lands OF
Mississippi and make a mechanic OF
him, There must be some training first
You cannot take girl from the poor
white trash in any locality and make hel
an artist or an intelligent housekeeper
You must wake them up first. Ii you
cannot do that with her, do 1t with the
next generation.
The basis of any school education
must be education that takes hold oi
that child's mind and fertilizes it. Ii
does not make intelligent children, but
it brings out all intelligence that il
sleeping in them. If you can get hold
of those children, wake up the menta
power that is slumbering in that child
ISome children, on account of their home
surroundings, have had their mino
| asleep dll Tie tlLuC, 81 SCS hO1eA VI NAAS'N
minds and wake them up.
| The fundamental thing in our common
schools is for the teacher to know how
to teach. The most expensive humbug
that / know of, is that you can put any
body in a school as teacher. 1t is the
most terrible waste of money, to expenc
lit upon people that cannot teach; mere
lily to give people support in life.
have great respect for any man or wo
man working for support. L have
great respect for any broken dowr
man or woman trying to suppor
themselves; but now as to this mattel
of pity, putting children into schoo
where there is man or woman unable
to teach them, my pity goes for the lift,
children. 1t would be better to pas
around the hat, and support such people
by public subscription, than to ruin thu
minds of the children by such teachers
believe schools are for children, not Il
support broken-down people.
Now the first thing for our people i
to wake up; we must have teachers Wit
can teach the natural method of In
struction. Don't you see as we do thl
we are laying the foundation for grea
revival and awakening up of the mind
awakening the executive power, AM
can go forward to great work.
Another thing to be remembered Ii
every teacher, every parent should neve
do for child what every child can d
for itself, by exercising its own power:
Oh, we want q change in society
How many mothers are laying up treas
ures of tears and heartbreaks for thei
; daughters, by doing for them what thei
daughters ought 10 do themselves; an
. when the time comes for them to do
how terrible it is. This woman says
! lssMy daughter must be educated; hay
learned to work, will still go on; wi
. lleaveth my daughter for life of leisur
and elegance. viii not teach her thos
: things which are necessary for a goo
home. She will find it out some day.
= Oh. the misery and heart-breakin,
: Breaking up of homes, the man drive
4 away from an incompetent wife, becaus
s of this.
: Mothers, teach your daughters ever.
thing they should learn, and do not Il
5 them depend on you The same in
= school. You are not placed in scho.
9 to be a crutch for those children, onl
:, to help them do the work themselve
+ To train them to self-help, to enab
them to take up this intelligent labor
d American life.
nj Remember this in all your training ,
n children; every child is born with
g great amount of steam power, ragir
through all the lower regions of j
= being. All that is to furnish the moti'
Il power that is to (using slang wors
Z run 4 man or woman through life.
requires q prodigious amount of stea
= to carry q man or woman through tn
life. Not furnished with prodigiol
+ motive power they would falter and |
y . nieces Remember that every bs